Magma

Magma is a French progressive rock band, originally from Paris.

It was formed in 1969 by composer-drummer-singer Christian Vander and bassist Laurent Thibault. This formation originated the musical genre dubbed Zeuhl, blending art rock, jazz, avant-garde, classical and modern music, and Eastern European folk music.

The band has had a very significant influence on jazz-rock and musical avant-garde worldwide and has introduced first-rate French and international musicians, such as Teddy Lasry, Didier Lockwood, Bernard Paganotti, Jannick Top, and Claude Engel, among many others. Nevertheless, Vander's formation has not achieved the commercial success of certain progressive rock bands like Genesis or Yes.

A limited number of studio albums have been produced over fifty years of career, but the band also makes live recordings that, over time, offer reinterpretations of its earlier compositions. The band has had an intermittent career with frequent changes in musicians (nearly one hundred and fifty musicians have played with Magma).

The band went dormant from 1983 in favour of Offering, an acoustic formation (created two years earlier) allowing more room for improvisation and the influences of 'Coltrane-esque' jazz. Magma reformed in 1990 and has been regularly touring in France, as well as throughout Europe, Russia, the United States, and Japan since then. In the 2010s, the band expanded its audience and performed its first concerts in South America, Australia, and China.